Lewis Hamilton claims his 100th F1 career pole position as Mercedes star beats Max Verstappen in Spanish Grand Prix qualifying

Lewis Hamilton claimed a century of pole positions as he edged out Max Verstappen by just 0.036s in yet another thrilling qualifying session for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Red Bull decided to show little of their hand throughout the weekend until qualifying. It soon looked like Verstappen was ahead as he ended up half-a-second clear of the field in Q2.

Hamilton was able to deliver yet again as he pipped his title rival to pole on his first timed effort. In doing so, the 36-year-old is F1’s first pole centurion.

Hamilton took pole position with a 1:16.741s on his first run in Q3. It proved to be good enough when the top trio of Hamilton, Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas failed to improve on their final efforts.

Aside from the top two

Bottas will start from third on the grid as he ended up 0.132s down on his Mercedes team-mate Hamilton, despite looking to have the edge throughout the early stages of qualifying.

Behind the leading trio came, Charles Leclerc for Ferrari in fourth with a lap that was over 0.7s of Hamilton’s benchmark.

Alpine continued their strong run of form as Esteban Ocon turned in another impressive session as he starts in a brilliant fifth, ahead of the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.

Daniel Ricciardo out-qualified team-mate Lando Norris this weekend as he starts from seventh. Sergio Perez could only manage a lap quick enough for eighth as he spun on his first effort in Q3.

Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso completed the top 10 for McLaren and Alpine, as the duo failed to match the heights of their team-mates.

Lance Stroll to starts the race in 11th

In what was an incredibly tight qualifying session, Lance Stroll missed out by just 0.008s as the Aston Martin driver finished 11th ahead of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly.

Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel recorded his joint-best qualifying session of the year as he claimed 13th, a few tenths ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi.

George Russell was 15th-fastest during the session, the Brit had no fresh set of soft compound tyres after he used them all during Q1.

A small error saw Yuki Tsunoda the shock of qualifying as he suffered a surprising elimination during Q1, the AlphaTauri driver missed out by just 0.007s.

He was joined by Kimi Raikkonen, who recorded his worst qualifying session of the year. Next to him was Haas rookie Mick Schumacher who outpaced both Nicholas Latifi and team-mate Nikita Mazepin.

It was a poor day for the Russian driver as he found himself almost 0.7s off his team-mate at the end of the session.